


with sweeter manners

by pyotr



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: 12 Days of Carnivale, F/M, M/M, Multi, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-17 13:26:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16975428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyotr/pseuds/pyotr
Summary: fics for the #12daysofcarnivale eventday 12:francis’s name was splashed across the newspapers and tabloids already, sympathetic or sensational or derisive. but then the articles began to change: he had made few enough appearances since his return, and so it was only obvious that he was hiding something. the location of the passage. some secret esquimaux treasure. a woman.





	1. day 1: a special disguise

**Author's Note:**

> title from tennyson's 1850 poem "ring out, wild bells"

silna often wore trousers about the home. harry didn’t protest- as if she would listen to him if he had- because it was always more natural to see her in trousers than conservative dresses or elaborate gowns, anyway, just a hop and a skip away from the bulky parka and seal skin pants that she had worn in the first years he had known her.

(it was strange, even, to see her in an english blouse and dark trousers; often, he would look to her and expect to see her as she had been then, before.)

silna did not often go out, so it happened that she spent most of her time in trousers. it was less for her protection, for silna had proven herself more than clever and resourceful, and more for her comfort; she was spoken of in hushed whispers in town, one of the goodsir boys’ mute esquimaux wife, and received stares when she dared to venture out.

anstruther, and the whole of britain as well, seemed unready for a woman such as she: willful and unabashed and strange in her foreign ways and, most importantly,  _not european._

she deserved to be more than just a curiosity, though, and it was from her that harry mined his courage.

so they kept to the house, to rosebank’s rooms and gardens and briefly to the flat harry had rented in edinburgh, and silna wore her trousers. she had a few dresses, he knew- simple, calico things in neutral colors that jane had coerced her into and that she had worn on scant few occasions- that now hung unused in their wardrobe.

he had never seen her in anything so fine as an evening gown, the jewel-toned silks and satins that the high society ladies of london wore. harry was fine with that; he had been uncomfortable enough initially mingling with officers among erebus, with their fine table manners and immaculately cut uniforms. 

but society always came calling, anyway. it had been a year and some change since franklin’s survivors had come limping back to england, a scant handful of the two crews that had left years earlier. it had taken time to heal- harry was still thinner than he was when he had first set sail, still had trouble remembering sometimes, still had nightmares and smelled burning flesh. but the season was upon them all, now, and while rosebank had been a haven, invitations had found him even there.

a gala, they said, to honor those few survivors and to remember the lost.

( _lost,_  they always said.  _lost,_ not dead.)

harry hadn’t wanted to go, had been of the mind to leave the invitation buried under the essays and sketches that were strewn across his desk, but jane had eyed him with disapproval and pursed lips, and had single-handedly arranged transportation and lodging. for him,  _and_ for silna- on the heavy, opulent cardstock, written beside his name in the same curling hand, was simply “and his wife”.

so they were in london, and dusk was approaching, and there was a carriage outside. harry waited in the foyer buttoned up into a fine coat and deep burgundy waistcoat that felt nearly stifling. his gloves- fine things whose cost he didn’t much want to think about- were half-tucked inelegantly into his pocket. the floor above creaks with footsteps, pacing; he fiddles with his collar, feeling almost caged.

he’s not sure what he had expected her to wear; a part of him expected to see silna come down the stairs in her usual blouse and trousers, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, her dark hair looped in customary braids. maybe there would be dirt smeared over her cheek from helping jane in her garden, her skin sun-warmed, grime worked under her fingernails.

it is not footsteps that make him look, now, but rather the soft rustle of fabric signalling that silna had come down the stairs. he had known that jane had spirited silna off to a dressmaker at some point, that silna had dragged her heels and scowled about it, but it had never quiet clicked that that meant she would be wearing a  _dress._

it was full-skirted, as was the fashion, off-shoulder and made of a soft-looking dark wine red that nearly matched his waistcoat. the gloves she wore were black lace, matching the delicate shawl pulled over her shoulders; a delicate ivory cameo was fastened to the choker at her throat. her hair was done up, as well, a white ribbon woven among the dark braids.

she looked absolutely mutinous.

harry smiles, and then tries to hold it back, which in turn only makes him want to smile more, and silna’s expression darkens, a look that promises retribution later. she lifts her skirts slightly as she descends the last few stairs so as not to trip of them, and harry sees that she’s been given kid boots with only the slightest heel; a mercy, really, since at home she either roamed barefoot or in men’s boots that she herself had worn down to be flat-footed.

“silna,” he says, and she takes his hand when it is offered, though she looks suspiciously at him. her hands were gloved, ostensibly to hide her nails. “you look lovely.”


	2. day 2: a state of grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> historically lady jane came out of mourning early and it was a whole ordeal with sir john's daughter from his first marriage, eleanor

mourning was a mixed blessing.

oh, it ached, of course. there were empty places in her life now that would never be filled, places where people had once been. she hadn’t gotten to say goodbye, not really; her goodbyes had been temporary things, things she expected to have returned to her in a few years’ time. she had waved her handkerchief and watched the ship sail away and comforted herself with the fact that she would see them again.

sir john and francis had each taken her goodbyes tenderly. now they may as well have been dead.

but there was a freedom to mourning, as well. 

ever since she had made her debut at sixteen she had been beset on all sides by suitors: sophia knew well what an attractive prospect she made for both social climbers and aristocratic sons alike, with her fine breeding and her uncle’s name and status. the attention had been novel, for a few years, but she had quickly tired of it and found little respite.

(her association with francis had deterred only a few persistent men; it had not been the sole reason she had chosen to be seen with him and the change had been little, but refreshing nonetheless.)

in her mourning blacks and greys, she was not approached by men asking to marry her. they did not come to the house to ask her aunt for permission to court her. at saloons and other social functions, ladies were quieter and less likely in their schemes to make a bride of her for their sons. 

sophia had thrived in it.

when lady jane had made her decision to come out of mourning (early, too early, a scandal, and eleanor had been absolutely up in arms) there had been a row about it, and sophia had been the angriest she had ever been. lady jane was not a woman used to hearing  _no,_ and when she did it was her custom to barrel on anyway. but she could not force sophia from her mourning, just as she could not curb sophia’s disapproval of her endless and reckless hope.

but sophia did not let this conflict leave the house. while her aunt went back to her fine, jewel-toned gowns and threw herself into fundraising search efforts, sophia stayed quiet and solemn in her simple frocks of black and grey and kept her eyes downturned and her pretty gold hair covered in a dark bonnet. 

she was content with this, happy to be looked over while lady jane took charge; at most, she would receive quiet condolences or a gentle comment on how gracefully she carried herself in her grief, and to this things sophia could nod and give demure thanks, and then she would return to being invisible.

she was wretched with loss, that was undeniable: there would be days where she simply could not make herself get out of bed and face a future without her uncle (without francis) and nights that she cried herself to sleep. she had once found a handkerchief in one of the drawers of her vanity, simple and white and monogrammed in one corner with the initials  _f.r.m.c_ and she had been near-inconsolable in her tears and hysterics.

sophia did not think she would ever marry. in loving francis she had ruined herself for all others, and she found herself at peace for that. in the face of her aunt’s fervency she had found herself taking up the role of widow, of accepting letters and cards from those who wished to acknowledge their loss when her aunt refused to do so. 

she was content in this. she missed them terrible, those lost to her, but in her mourning sophia found herself closer to happy than she had felt in years.

 

 


	3. day 3: naughty or nice

edward had always been thankful for thomas’s flat in the city.

london was a dreadful place, true, and thomas didn’t exactly live in a reputable area, but edward preferred it by far to his family’s home, always busy, always full of people, and never a moment to be alone and breathe. at home there was always someone there speaking to him, prodding at him, asking things about the past few years that he couldn’t put into words.

thomas didn’t ask. he knew all the answers already. 

so edward fled there often, for days or sometimes weeks at a time. his mother didn’t approve; it was one thing to be a bachelor at nearly forty years old, another entirely to be a bachelor at nearly forty years old and living with another single man. after all the things he’d been through, lived through,  _survived,_ his mother’s disapproval didn’t rank very high on the list of things he feared.

the apartment itself was only one room, drafty with a ceiling that leaked on occasion, but there was a bay window with warped glass and a bench that they had piled with any pillow or blanket they could afford to spare. it was comfortable, and it was theirs.

(”you’re a commander, now,” thomas had said to him once as they lounged on the rickety, too-small bed, his fingers combing though edward’s hair. “do you think you’ll ever sail again?”

“no.” edward closes his eyes and fights back a shiver; the cold was never too far from him, now. “never. do you?”

thomas had smiled at him, then, but hadn’t answered, and edward had let it lie.)

he stands in the middle of the room now, neck craned to look up at the ceiling, a frown on his face. the ceilings weren’t particularly high- it was an old building, and everything felt as if it were in miniature after one had walked the halls of the admiralty- and fastened to one of the rafters was a tiny sprig of green with a cluster of delicate white berries.

it was  _mistletoe._

“thomas,” edward says, his voice measured even as he doesn’t look away from the ceiling. “did you put this here?”

“put what where?” thomas is seated on the bench in the bay window, wrapped in at least two blankets to ward of the chill, a tatty book open in his lap. the skies outside were grey, and the streets below unpleasant with snow turned to slush.

“you’re a horrid liar,” edward accuses, and thomas laughs.

“what if i did?” he says, and there’s a way that thomas has about him that always makes him seem innocent, almost angelic, even when he is up to mischief. his eyes brighten with it, his mouth turning up at the corners. edward almost smiles, as well; how fortunate they were, to be here and to have this, to be happy.

“well, something would have to be done for it,” edward says, and it’s a fight to keep that exasperated air when thomas looks at him like that. “i suppose i’d have to be the one to decide.” 

thomas makes a pleased little noise and marks his page, shucking off the blankets and padding over in socked feet to where edward stood. it was chilly to be in just shirtsleeves, but thomas didn’t seem much phased; he stood close enough that their noses nearly brushed, of a height, and edward felt almost cross-eyed trying to look at him.

“you know what two people do under a mistletoe, edward?” thomas’s voice is sly, but there’s a note of warmth as he takes edward’s hands in his own, kissing his knuckles. “let me make it up to you.”


	4. day 4: an unexpected gift

francis had never much interacted with children; he had never had a need to. he was a navy man, and there were no children aboard his ships, just men that oft acted as such.

but now, he bounces esther on his knee, gently dabs away drool from the corner of her mouth. her cheeks were round and red, as he had been told was the norm, and there were downy tufts of pale hair atop her head. her eyes were big and dark, like her mother’s. she felt terribly, incredibly small in his hands.

but most of all she seemed a pleasant babe,who cried only at infrequent intervals and was easy to soothe besides. she grasped at his fingers and coat and vest with pudgy, curious hands, her eyes wide wondering as she took in the world around her, face strangely solemn with her pursed lips and slightly furrowed brows. presently she was chewing on her own fist, and francis gently pries it from her mouth.

“careful, lass,” he says to her, and his voice is as soft as he can make it, hoarse and unused to such tenderness. “proper ladies don’t chew their nails.”

more than anything, though, esther was thomas’s child. not in blood, no, but in all the other ways that mattered most. thomas loved this little girl more than breathing; he’d go to war for her.

francis hadn’t understood that, at first. babies were sticky, slobbery things; there was little enough there to love. thomas had written to him that he was marrying, a widow with a young child besides, and francis had thought he’d gone mad. they had been the same, the two of them, in love with the sea and never truly at ease without a ship’s timbers beneath their feet, but francis had loved  _him_ despite it all and maybe this felt just a bit like abandonment.

but esther was a sweet, charming little girl, and her mother was quick-witted and amicable, and francis could see now why thomas would want this, why he would want to keep it. and, dropping a kiss to the crown of esther’s head, if he thought hard enough about it he could almost forgive him for it, too.


	5. day 5: a private performance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting a day early due to tumblr's blackout tomorrow, december 17th

henry collins has always been a large man. harry knew this, from the passing words they had exchanged or when they had slipped by each other below decks on  _erebus._ he was tall, broad-chested, and even larger in the layers upon layers of clothing that they all wore to ward off the cold.

he seemed so small now, though, hunched as he was, his face pressed to harry’s shoulder, fingers curled into the lapels of his coat. harry does his best to hold him, wraps his arms around collins’s back as the quiet, gasping sobs shake through him, dark hair brushing against his nose. he smelled like stale sweat and fear.

“hush now, mister collins,” harry tries to soothe, feeling desperately out of his depth. he runs his hand up and down the other man’s back, unsure if he could even feel it through his coat and sweater. still, the action must have meant something, because he can feel collins suck in a deep breath and then exhale slowly, shoulders rising and falling.

but collins didn’t withdraw immediately, clinging close as his breathing evened out, head tucked under harry’s chin. when he speaks his voice is choked, still rough with tears.

“i’m sorry, doctor goodsir.” it’s muffled, spoken against harry’s coat. “i don’t... i’m sorry.”

he moves to pull away and harry doesn’t hold him there, instead lets his hands slide down collins’s arms. the man looks miserable, his eyes red and puffy from crying, cheeks tacky with tears. something wells in harry then, not pity but perhaps sympathy, sharing the knowledge that they were all dying and helpless to do anything about it.

“it’s not your fault. you’ve nothing at all to be sorry for,” harry says, soft, and there is only a beat of quiet before collins rocks forward and kisses him.

it’s nothing spectacular or passionate; collins’s skin was still damp and slightly sticky, and his overgrown sideburns tickled harry’s face when he moved a certain way. still, harry grasps at collins’s arms and sighs into it because he  _liked_ collins and, well, it was always nice to have such attentions.

the kiss itself lasted only a small moment, and when collins moves away he looks almost guilty, his mouth twisted down into a regretful frown, a furrow between his brows. he doesn’t meet harry’s eyes. “doctor-”

“harry. call me harry.” and then he says, “don’t apologize, mister collins.”

collins pauses as if considering it, lips moving slightly like he was rolling the name around on his tongue, and when he looks up he seems not light but less heavy, less wretched with hopelessness, and harry swallows thickly, caught as they just look at each other in the dim yellow lamplight.

collins says, quietly, “call me henry.”


	6. day 6: fire and ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> historical notes: george mckinley collins is henry foster collins's twin brother. margaret forbus (or possibly foster, who i refer to as maggie, here) is his younger sister, born in 1831, thirteen years younger than collins himself. the number sequence is the ages of all of collins's siblings; he had been 27 in 1845, when erebus and terror left england.

henry closed his eyes and saw fire.

as a child he had like to lay on the ground with his face upturned to the sky, his eyes closed and the world red behind his eyelids, and pretend that he was flying. the sun would be warm on his face and george would laugh, or uproot a handful of grass to drop on his face, or tug at his hair, and then they would be off on a chase and henry would have a grin so wide he felt as though his face would split in half.

even at carnivale, with the fire hot enough to sear skin, and singe his clothes, the smoke caught in his nose and mouth, he sometimes felt as though he hadn’t been warm since then.

the ice stuck with him now, was  _in_ him, had seeped through the dive suit and down to his bones the moment he had seen billy’s corpse floating towards him, blue-skinned and spread-eagled and his face frozen into a wrenching, desperate expression of terror. the image had haunted him, had lurked his the corner of his eye; it would disappear when he looked directly at it. 

he felt ill with it, the guilt and the fear and the cold. he could feel himself slipping.

henry’s hands shake, after carnivale. his skin feels warmed by the fire but on the inside he is still frozen, still cold, cold, cold. he struggles out of what remains of his costume and helps to move and name the dead, and the smell of their charred and broken flesh sticks at the back of his throat, makes his mouth water and his gut clench painfully.

(he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a decent meal, a  _cooked_ meal, food that wasn’t stale bread or gruelish oats or half-rotted meat from a goldner’s can. he had seen these men, his friends, and his brain had told him horror while his stomach had told him hunger.)

doctor stanley had been cold to him and then he had been hot, eaten up by flames. henry hadn’t wanted to come to carnivale but doctor stanley had told him to and henry had trusted him, and now he was worse off for it. he wasn’t angry with doctor stanley- he couldn’t be, the man was  _dead,_ little more than ash and blackened bones- because he had done what he thought he could, because henry’s brain was so scrambled that there was no helping him, even as he clawed himself apart from the inside out.

for all of it, doctor stanley had prescribed a sense of fun, and then he had set himself ablaze. henry remembers that he had a daughter.

 _does she love birds?_ maggie had loved birds. when he was home she would show him her sketches, point out the ones that nested in the tree outside their house and rattle off taxonomies, and he would smile and laugh and nod along even though they all looked just about the same to him. maggie had been fourteen, when he left.

(so young, they’d all been so young. twenty seven, twenty four, seventeen, fourteen, eleven, nine, five.)

later, later, the coca wine will be good for him. his fingertips will tingle and it will ward of the cold in his bones, will make him laugh. it will fog his mind and render him near insensible, but he will be warm for what will feel like the first time in his life.


	7. day 7: sledge ride

he understood, logically, that they had to walk out. he knew that they would harness themselves to the sledges and drag them as far as they could even as their own bodies failed them. some would die, inevitably; that was just fact. some of their struggles would mean nothing, in the end.

thomas knew this. he knew that it was their best and only option left.

he still hated it. 

the march to fury beach had been three hundred miles; this was to be three times as long. thomas trusted francis, trusted him not to let the power go to his head and trusted him to keep caring about each and every one of them, but he wasn’t sure about what might become of the men. the thoughts they would have, the resentment that would grow.

(ross had been right, too, making them march, but he had gone about it in the wrong way, let his arrogance puff up his aristocratic head, intent on keeping rank even as the gulf between the officers and the men grew larger and larger until-)

thomas was afraid. not for himself, no- he was well enough liked that if a mutiny did happen it was unlikely he’d be caught in the middle, and if he was, well. he’d told esther he may not make it back a second time, that this place may kill him- but for francis. because francis was a good man, a man who believed in second chances, a man who preferred to ignore the darkness and evilness that thomas knew first hand. he was a cynic on the surface, but deep down, francis was a bleeding heart optimist. 

but perhaps fitzjames knew it, the way that he looked askance at thomas; he remembered how the color had drained from fitzjames’s face as he spoke, the way his jaw had worked as he chewed his questions before he asked them. he had felt separate from himself, at the time, fuzzy with a glass of brandy and a dash of laudanum for the pain in what had remained of his leg, but he’d spoke truly.

he could remember how it felt, too, the heft of the ax in his hand, and the hatred that drove him to it.

so, no, thomas didn’t want that to happen to francis because francis was his friend, his  _best_ friend, and he deserved more than to be murdered by some starving, stinking seaman with a grudge and left forgtten on the arctic shale. francis was a good man, perhaps the best of them, and the only chance any of those sorry slobs had at surviving this place.

with this in mind he tightens his grip on his walking stick and watches the men slip on their sledging harnesses, taking in each and every face, the emotions there. he catches fitzjames’s eye and the commander gives a slight nod, which thomas returns; an agreement, then, that if anyone were to survive this wretched place it must be francis.


	8. day 8: a time of miracles

essie was a warm weight in his arms, near dozing against his shoulder as he held her after dinner, humming in low tones and gently rubbing his palm up and down her back. he feels, sometimes, that when he is home his world shrinks to a pinpoint: this house, esther and their daughter, instead of the open sea and feeling of a ship beneath his feet that he had loved his whole life.

thomas had never expected to have a family. he was not the sort of man to settle: he felt most alive while at sea, and it would be cruel to expect anyone to wait for him. he had never had any intention to set down roots, and that had been fine.

“tom,” esther says from behind him, her voice soft and warm, “can i speak to you a moment?”

he turns, still humming, but something had set off alarm bells in his brain; even he knew that questions like that were dangerous. but when esther approaches she doesn’t seem angry and instead, when she lays one of her hands over his own on essie’s back and the other over his elbow, there is something soft in her face, something tender. 

(he had never known what to do with tender, not really, he himself some half-feral thing made of salt and the sea— )

“‘course,” he says to her, voice pitched in a whisper, and a smile steals across her face. a good sign, then. “always, y’know that.”

“i’m… pregnant,” she says, “i’m pregnant.”

his breath catches for a second, a heartbreaking moment where he expects to blink and wake up, but esther is watching him intently with her expression open and expectant. thomas grins, then, and laughs loud, pulling esther to him as essie wakes and fusses.

esther laughs then, too, and slips an arm around his back and kisses him, slow and deep. thomas loves her, he knows, as much as someone like him can love anything, and esther must have been mad to marry him but but at least she loved him, as well.

“a baby,” he breathes, noses bumping as he presses their foreheads together. esther was nearly of a height with him. “you’re sure?”

“as i can be,” she tells him, and she slips essie from his hold, bounces her on her hip to quiet her. “i’ve a bit of experience with these sort of things, you understand.”

“oh, yes,” he says. it was meant to be sarcastic but there is such a sense of wonder in him, of joy, that he doesn’t quite make it. “don’t know how i could’ve forgotten.”

gently, gently, he runs his hand over the soft blonde curls on essie’s head and she watches him with big, dark eyes. she was so young, still- only a year and some change- and a sudden thought occurs to him. “do you want this? another baby?”

esther thinks about it and then nods, a small smile on her face. “yes, i think so. is it something you want?”

“yes,” he tells her, and he’s never been so honest in his whole life. “more’n anything.”

 

 


	9. day 9: by candlight

jane had never had a sister, really. 

she had had agnes, for a bit, but the poor thing had died so young that no one had ever really had the chance to know her. instead, jane had grown up in a house of boys, surrounded by brothers on all sides. she loved them, of course, nearly as much as they irritated her, but there was something to be said for female company.

jane had treasured her time with her mother. in the spring and summer they would sit in the garden and tend the plants, and at night she would brush out jane’s long hair for bed. they would do their sewing together, and her mother would sit with her and listen to her recite poetry.

but then she had gotten ill and died. harry had left to find the passage. her father had passed with a broken heart, and archie had come home so sick and feverish that he didn’t recognize a single one of them in his delirium by the time he left them.

harry had come home, though, older and battered and scarred, but blessedly, mercifully alive. and silna had come with him.

jane hadn’t known what to think of silna at first. the woman had been strange and silent, foreign, with an intensity that was nearly uncomfortable. but harry loved her. jane saw what others missed, the way that harry was more at ease with silna on hand, how he would go on and on to her in her esquimaux language (”it’s called inuktitut,” harry had told her once, meaningfully) and how he only ever looked like the naive little brother that had sailed away in ‘45 when he was looking at her.

“we want to marry,” harry had told her one afternoon, she weeding her herb garden and he scribbling in a book. he and silna had lived together in a flat in edinburgh for a brief time, but harry had needed familiarity to heal, and quiet, and so they had returned to the sanctuary that rosebank offered. “silna and i, that is.”

jane had noticed how sometimes he would sit outside in silence, his eyes closed and face upturned to the sky, looking almost angelic with his peaceful expression and hands folded in his lap. he wore layers often, even in the spring and into the summer, as if he always had a chill. occasionally he would drift, even in the middle of conversation, or he would become frustrated at his own forgetfulness, and something in his face would change and darken into a man that jane didn’t recognize.

(she hated those times, hated watching her brother suffer. it was the lead perhaps, as john had discussed with her in undertone, years of its consumption having altered his mind in ways they didn’t quite yet know.)

he was getting better, with silna there for him. he wasn’t the baby brother that she had known, but he was still harry, and he was getting better.

“you should speak with joseph about it,” she tells him idly, more focused on the thistles she is uprooting. “you know he’s been making noises about it.”

harry laughs a bit, and jane soaks up the sound like a sponge. he laughed so rarely, these days. “i will,” he says, “though some changes might be made to his sermon.”

jane didn’t give her blessing because he hadn’t asked for it, because she knew that he would do as he liked with or without her approval, and the best she could manage was support him and plead his case when questioned. and he was certainly  _questioned;_ few people here looked on silna kindly, and she doubted that would change with marriage.

the wedding was set in the evening, an unusual time, but there were no guests save the family, and so no need for celebration besides a lovely dinner. snow coated the ground outside an almost ethereal, glittering white, and fat flakes fell from the already darkening sky. winter had always felt sad to jane, a time where nothing grew, but she supposed that this was as good of an occasion as any to warm her to it.

“hold still,” she says between the pins in her mouth, her fingers in silna’s glossy dark hair. half was already woven back into a braid with tiny yellow flowers tucked throughout, the buds plucked from jane’s own plants; she was trying, desperately, to pin up the other side as well, but silna seemed to little enjoy such attention. “i’ll get you in the head with one of these things, and then neither of us will be happy.”

silna huffed at that, a little breath of laughter, and jane saw her smile in the mirror.

she was dressed very much in the winter style, wearing a fine, bell-sleeved coat of wine-colored velvet, a stole of pale seal fur cut from one of the furs she had brought with her stitched over the shoulders. the gown itself was simpler, almost every-day, patterned with tartan in deep blue and burgundy and pale yellow. allowances had been made for a smaller crinoline, but silna looked lovely, really, even though she didn’t have an elegant dress of pale silk or satin, as was popular among the wealthy.

jane felt warm; she had never been able to see harry settling, before, but now that he was she was glad it was silna. 

she pins the braid she was working on in order to weave in the little flowers, but she found her gaze travelling back to the mirror, back to silna’s face. she looked peaceful, her expression slack and eyes closed, a faint smile about her lips. jane was glad for it; the poor woman so often looked wary and on guard that jane wondered if she ever felt any joy here at all.

“you make him happy,” jane says in undertone, even as she works. silna’s eyes open and meet her own in the mirror, dark and serious. “i should thank you for that, i think.”

silna shakes her head, just once, the tiniest movement. jane watches her sign in the mirror and it takes her a moment to decode them in reverse- she was still learning, as well, this thrown together hand language- and pauses for a moment, fingers falling slack.

“thank him,” silna had said, using that strange sign she used when referring to harry, something that had made him laugh when he told her it meant  _curly._ “he saved me.”

harry did not talk about what he had seen out there, what he had done, and silna had held her silence as well. it had been agonizing, that not-knowing, but jane had swallowed it down and allowed them their secrets. in time, she told herself, in time he will tell me and then we can all heal.

“i’ll give my thanks to both of you, then,” jane says. silna was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman jane had ever seen, the candlelight turning her skin to bronze and glinting gold in her hair, turning her eyes into deep, dark wells. “you brought him home, and he brought you to us.”

she works in silence, after that, and silna closes her eyes again, placid. it’s a companionable silence and it strikes jane suddenly that this girl, this woman, will, in a few hours, be her little brother’s bride. silna had already felt a part of the family, slipping in right under all of their noses and melding in to the routine of the household once she had found her rhythm, but soon it would be official, as if the marriage made it more real.

silna stands once her hair is finished, pinned up with little white blooms and a delicate lace veil that spilled over her shoulders to mid-back. jane takes her hand with both of her own and squeezes, unsure how to give voice to the feeling.

“i want you to be able to call me sister,” she settles on. “and i hope that you will allow me the same.”


	10. day 10: in hot water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> historical note: collins really did have all those siblings born in all those different places. i did use nicknames though: billy is william, hal is henry (he... had a brother with the same name as him), tamsin is thomasine, maggie is margaret, and lizzy is elizabeth. decima is just decima.

harry had always been the type to bring home strays. the goodsir household was large and loud and even as a child, he’d scamper home with crayfish or crabs in buckets, or holding a big orange barn cat, or a baby bird. once he had even come home, a triumphant grin on his face, clutching a live grouse in his hands.

(his mother had nearly had a conniption over it being loose in the house, and then it was caught and butchered and harry had cried for days)

he supposed in a way he felt responsible for collins. he cared for him, of course, admired his gentleness even as the man himself shook to pieces, enjoyed the way his voice curled sweetly around harry’s name, had marveled in the way that collins had been able to point out every star and constellation and name each and every one of them. 

(”they’re different this far north,” collins had said, looking almost bashful about it, but something inside of him had seemed to settle and harry had smiled for it)

collins had been caught with a glancing blow from that monster out there on the ice-  _tuunbaq,_ blanky had once translated for them, and lady silence had looked small and mutinous- the impact of its great large paw cracking his ribs, claws rending flesh. the wounds were large and ugly, but survivable, and it had been lucky that collins hadn’t gone into shock or caught an infection; harry suspected that the latter at least was due to the coca wine that collins had pilfered, a mixed blessing.

harry had done his best to stitch him up and had felt guilty that out of all the men he could save, he was glad that collins was one of them.

and after, after, when they were swathed in wool blankets that weren’t threadbare and had bellies full of hot food that wasn’t ridden with lead, when the bandages that were wrapped ‘round collins’s middle were fresh and clean instead of tattered, the man will look so small and miserable that harry near aches with sympathy.

“do you have any family?” harry had asked him in his kindest voice, but collins’s shoulders had drawn up about his ears with a wince. “i could write them, if you wish, tell them that you’re safe. i’ll send the letter out with my own.”

“don’t.” he doesn’t know if collins had meant for the word to come out a whisper but it had, a rasping, sad sort of breath. “i don’t... i’m not well, doctor. in the head. don’t want them to see me like this, billy and hal and the girls. it’s not- i’d rather be dead, than come back to them like this.”

harry draws in a sharp breath at that; he had known that collins had been hurting, horribly so, but he hadn’t thought it had gone so deep to make collins value his life so little. he lays his hand over the other man’s, says, “do you have anywhere to go, once we return?”

collins shakes his head no, just the slightest movement.

“then you’ll come with me,” he decides. “nearly all my brothers have left for homes of their own, so there will be room enough at rosebank.”

that was how harry ended up walking down one of anstruther’s streets, collins near enough at his side that their arms brushed. they both looked rather ragged and disreputable, he was sure, but the streets around him felt familiar and close, inundated with childhood memories. he noticed different things, now, whether by separation or experience, and it fits strange on him like an old coat.

“that’s the baker’s shop,” harry says, pointing out the building as they pass; has done this time and time again, bringing collins’s attention to some landmark and giving a childhood anecdote. “my younger brother robert- bob, really- was sweet on one of the daughters. he’d spend all his money on pastries he didn’t like just to talk to her, and he’d blush and stutter his way through every time.”

later he gestures at the beach as they climb the hill, says,  “i used to spend days out there in the sand. i would bring things back to the house- crabs, mostly- and be scolded for it, but it never stopped me. that’s what i did before, you know; i studied crabs.”

the  _before what_ didn’t need to be specified.

collins smiles a little, small, and something lightens in his face as he pauses to look out over the water. “my sister maggie, margaret,” he says, “she loved birds. she’d point out every one we saw, but i couldn’t ever remember all the names.”

harry smiles, too, and just barely touches their fingers together before they continue up the hill.

rosebank was a decently sized house, tiled roof and white-washed walls, and a fixture in harry’s life for as long as he could remember it. this was what he thought of when he had buoyed himself dreaming of home: this house, his parents, his siblings. the big garden that his mother and jane had loved; the work lab that he and john had constructed in the attic; the foul words that robert had carved into tree trunks when they were children.

“that’s it there?” collins asks, and harry nods. he is filled with equal parts trepidation and anxiety, a wanting to be there already while also wary of what he might find. “you’ve got a big house, doctor goodsir.”

he’s long given up any sense of humility regarding his titles; he  _is_ a doctor, an anatomist by education if not a surgeon by practice. a doctor goodsir in a family of doctor goodsirs. “i’ve a big family, too.”

the cobble road that lead to the house was the same as he remembered it, the bushes and flowers his mother had loved tenderly, the faded paint on the gate to the carriage house. a part of him had almost expected it to all be gone, to be changed with the way he had changed, these past long years.

“are you alright?” collins’s voice was soft, as if often seemed this days, but now out of compassion more than anything. harry runs a hand down his face, through the beard he’d grown during those months on the long march. he was sure he looked a fright, unshaven and framed by riotous dark curls, but he’d scarcely had time to look at himself in a mirror let alone make himself presentable.

they’d just have to take him as he was, then.

the flat stones that marked the way to the door were the same, grass a bit more overgrown between the cracks without a constant and steady stream of traffic to keep it trampled. the door was the same, the white wash on the walls, the creeping ivy that his mother had tried so hard for years to get rid of. he raises his hand to knock on the door, then decides to try the knob. 

it  _was_ his home, after all, no matter how long he’d been gone. he shouldn’t have to knock to enter his own home.

the door was unlocked and so he pushes it open and the house is quiet, too quiet even for only two people. harry frowns and he hears collins shift closer, just the barest rustle of fabric, and he reaches back for the other man’s hand, reassured slightly when warm fingers tangle with his own. perhaps it was his experiences that had made him so paranoid and distrustful of silence, his neck prickling with awareness; he’d spent so long surrounded by a crush (and then a lessening, lessening number) of men that quiet had become foreign to him. 

harry closes the door behind him because he was raised, well,  _here,_ and not in a barn, meaning that he had some sense of decency. collins is peering about, his face pinched in that perpetual expression of vague despair that has seemingly come to be his norm.

“you’re sure you lived  _here,_ doctor?” collins’s voice is pitched low, and harry would have thought it was a joke had he not known the man as well as he did. he opens his mouth to respond, perhaps a bit put out, but a creak on the stairs makes him look up, the nearly spiral staircase that always squeaked no matter the step.

harry feels something lodge in his throat. “jane?”

_“harry?”_

 

* * *

 

 

 

they stay at rosebank some few weeks, a season or maybe more. harry is glad for it; anstruther is a sleepy, quiet town, contained and familiar and free of painful reminders. collins, too, seems more settled, something lighter in his eyes, the set of his shoulders. he has been thinking of things to write to his family, to tell them that he is not well but that he is getting better, and that he hopes to see them all soon; harry helps him, sometimes, when the words get caught somewhere between his brain and his pen.

but there was grief here, too, empty spaces where people should have been. he would walk into the sitting room and expect to see his father sitting in front of the fireplace, or at his desk in the study; if he listened close enough, he swore that he could hear archie’s laughter. jane was the only one here, now, and he felt almost bad for her, all alone in the house.

the others visit by turn, john and robert and joseph. harry is glad for it, pathetically so. the first time harry is alone with john he clings to him and sobs like a child, while his brother combs his fingers through his hair, only a little bit awkward. robert, on his own, ribs harry gleefully about it all, but there’s relief in his voice when he says that he had sailed,  _twice,_ to find him and came home wanting.

(it is joseph that harry worries for, joseph who comes home and looks thin and sad and ill but so very glad that harry has returned, who holds his face in shaking hands as if he couldn’t believe that this was all real and pulls him into a tight, crushing embrace. harry reminds himself to ask john his thoughts in his next letter.)

he is getting better.  _they_ are getting better.

jane seemed taken with collins, which harry was grateful for, but even more than that he was relieved to see that collins rather liked her, as well. she gave him tasks, harry knew, to keep him busy: running errands or washing dishes or chopping wood or pulling up whatever crop she had decided was good enough to harvest. and then they would all sit down together for dinner and it would be cozy, and domestic, and everything that harry had been almost certain he would never see again.

so harry enjoys the little things he had previously put aside or never had time for. he goes back to studying crabs; he collects seashells. some shaggy tortoiseshell with a cropped tail follows collins home from the grocer one morning, and instead of chasing her off they decide to keep her; he names her apollonia (“polly, for short.”) and feeds her scraps off the table, to jane’s eternal vexation.

they go to the beach, sometimes, he and collins. they take off their shoes and socks and roll up their trousers to wade around in the tide pools, laughing and shouting as the cold waves lap over their ankles and sand seeps between their toes. collins says to him, “we used to do this when we lived in hartlepool, george and i.”

“george?”

“my brother,” collins says, and there’s something sad in his voice. “my twin, really.”

harry makes a surprised noise at that, glances over curiously. “i didn’t know you were a twin.”

the barest shrug of shoulders answers him. “i’m not, anymore.”

he backtracks, then, says, “you don’t sound as if you were from hartlepool.”

“never stayed in one place for more than a few years.” collins plucks a stone out of the sand, deep black and smooth, edges rounded; he tries to skip it but it falls flat into the water with a  _plop._ “my father was navy, and we followed his postings. sussex is where me and george were born. hal and billy in hartlepool; maggie, some place in ireland; tamsin, decima, and lizzy were all popped out in liverpool, but by that time i was already sailing.”

“my family have all been doctors,” harry offers. he plants his hands on his hips and stretches his back, cracks his neck. “my father, my grandfather. john, bob, archie, and myself all studied medicine. we were all born here, too, along with jane and baby agnes, except for joseph. he was born in lower largo, but that’s only a few hours’ walk from here, so i’m not sure it counts.”

it’s the most harry’s ever heard collins talk about his family; occasionally there would be some throw away comment, something one of his siblings had said, or that his sister like this kind of chocolate or his brother broke an arm while climbing a tree. little, inconsequential things, but he’d never had names to go with them. he decided that having a brood of siblings rather suited a man like Collins.

“you’ve a good family, doctor goodsir,” collins tells him, and harry smiles. “you all seem very close.”

“we are. were.” it’s tinged with grief; archie’s loss still hurt, sometimes, like a healing wound. “and please, call me harry. i’ve told you this before, mister collins.”

“you have,” collins cedes, “but you’ve never called me henry, either.”

 

* * *

 

 

it is winter the first time harry kisses collins, a bit over a year since they had first stumbled up the hill to rosebank, ragged and tired and battered. and it’s very much that way, harry kissing collins, because harry is the one that fair falls forward while collins’s hands hover, surprised and unsure, and harry is the one that breaks it, too.

there is snow on the ground outside, falling in fat, crystalline flakes, and harry finds that he hates going out into it, but not nearly as much as collins, who takes up a near permanent position in the kitchen, wrapped up in a tartan by the stove as he tries to learn how to knit. the cold was in them, now, deep in their bones and dredging up old nightmares.

they stay indoors. harry sends john his papers to be published, collins tries to knit, and a boy from down the lane chops their wood.

the kiss itself is neither coordinated nor particularly good. harry doesn’t know why he dies it, really; perhaps some latent impulse. he  _was_ terribly fond of collins, though, and at this point the man knew him better than anyone else; not his past, perhaps, but his thoughts.

so, harry kisses him.

collins is watching him wide-eyed when he rocks away, fingers clutched in a half-woven glove, his mouth slightly parted. he looked utterly gob smacked and harry swallows down the hysterical laugh that crawls up his throat.

“i’m sorry, henry,” he babbles, “i don’t know what- that is, i didn’t. i’m not. i’m sorry-“

“harry,” collins says, and though his voice is small, harry stops talking immediately. it’s a rare moment when collins uses his name.

“…yes?”

collins’s hand is shaking slightly as he reaches out to brush his fingertips across harry’s cheek, light as a feather, and harry’s eyes flutter shut. his palms are rough, callouses that had cracked in the cold catching on harry’s beard, but the gesture is tender nonetheless. harry covers collins’s hand with his own.

“did you mean it?” collins asks, seriously.

“of course,” harry says.

collins smiles at that, something small and shy and unsure, but it’s a start.

 

* * *

 

 

“you’re as bad as john,” jane scolds harry, “and not even half as subtle.”

she has him cornered after dinner, having requested his help with cleaning up. collins had given them both a quizzical look- often he was the one cleaning up, always volunteering- but jane shoos him off and he goes, polly cradled in his arms.

“pardon?” he says. he tells himself he’s not intimidated- that he’s seen worse,  _done_ worse- but jane had always had something of their mother in her, and her ability to loom over him despite her height was one of them.

“i don’t care what you do to henry in your spare time,” she says hotly, and she has a finger pressed to his chest, a scowl upon her face. there is the just tiniest beginnings of bags beneath her eyes, and harry swallows. “or what he does to you. but you could at least be  _quiet_ about it, else your wailing is like to wake the neighbors and send me to an early grave with exhaustion.”

harry remembers, suddenly, that their rooms share a wall.

“it’s not like that, jane,” he protests, a hot flush crawling up his neck, even though it plainly was. “it’s-“

“i don’t  _care!”_

his mouth snaps shut, cowed into quiet for a moment, and then frowns. “what does  _john_  have to do with anything?”

the look that jane gives him is pure disbelief paired with a noise of disgust, and she turns on her heel and strides from the room, leaving harry to clean up dinner alone.

 

* * *

 

 

collins sends a letter to his family in late spring of ’53, nearly two full years since they had escaped the arctic.

he was happier than he had been before, harry knew, smiled more and had nightmares less. he was still quiet, still shy and sometimes drifting, but he was leaps and bounds better than the miserable, haunted creature that had first followed harry to anstruther. there were things that had come back with them and things that they had left behind, harry knew, and they would never be the same as they were before it all, before all the death and fear and horror.

(he thought, sometimes, of lady silence, whether she had survived it all and what she was doing if she had, and his heart will swell and collapse inwards under the weight of it all and harry knows that this, too, will never leave him.)

collins writes only one letter, to his mother, and it takes him nearly two weeks to do so. harry walks with him to post it, and they walk close enough side by side that their fingers brush on the way home.


	11. day 11: a long winter's night

the first night they spend together after harry comes to berth on erebus is quiet.

john’s cabin is small, the bunk too cramped for him to stretch out fully, but they make it work. harry slithers through the door and slides it shut as quiet as possible long after the lamp has been turned off, and he feels his way the two steps over, shedding boots and waistcoat as he goes.

harry doesn’t know what he had expected. something passionate, perhaps; hard kisses and heavy breathing that would have to be stifled lest someone hear. they hadn’t seen each other in such a long time, after all, and hadn’t had a moment alone in even longer, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to believe that they’d set upon each other the first moment they could.

but instead harry slips into the bunk, folding himself against john’s back, pressed from shoulder to ankle. he slips his arm over john’s middle and presses his cold nose to the back of his neck, tangles their feet together. there’s a recoil from his chilled skin, and he laughs softly.

“harry,” john says on a sigh, and he covers harry’s hand with one of his own, smoother from work stitching and shaving rather than scuttling up ratlines. 

harry nuzzles through his hair, presses a kiss to the nape of his neck, feels him shudder in his arms. “john.”

there’s hardly enough room for it but john turns over to face him, even though in the dark there is nothing to see, and lays a hand along harry’s cheek. it’s a gesture that’s infinite in its tenderness, enough that harry almost cries with it. he’d forgotten how much he had wanted it, how much he  _needed_ it, this gentle intimacy.

he finds john’s mouth in the dark and they kiss, slow and sweet and familiar and sorely missed, missed enough that this simple contact feels like coming home. something in harry’s chest shakes loose and he breathes out like he’d been holding it there, their noses bumping.

 _erebus’s_ hull groans with the ice pressing in and john curls somehow closer, pressing their foreheads together, and harry tangles his fingers in the other man’s hair. this was good, just this, holding each other in the dark; harry felt so full with love that he was sure he was near bursting.

“i love you,” he whispers, and he can feel the curve of john’s lips as he smiles, the way his hand moves to rest along harry’s neck, fingers curling over his nape. “no matter what comes, john, know that i love you.”

“and i you,” john responds, and his voice is hoarse with some sad emotion that harry wants to wipe away, tries to do so with another kiss. “whatever happens, we will face it together, harry.”


	12. day 12: wishlist fill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a fill for berenswick's carnivale prompt: “I want to see a scenario where Silna interacts with Sophia and/or Lady Jane in some capacity.”

sophia had only seen francis briefly since his miraculous return, sailing in on a limping ship from boston harbor. he had personally brought news of her uncle’s passing, though it had already been obvious enough, and her aunt had been cold and stoic as she told him to leave and not to return.

she hadn’t missed, though, how thin francis was, how his clothes hung loose on him, how his face had held a sickly pallor and how his lips were still cracked and chapped and chewed raw. he had talked about her uncle’s noble service, about how he had died for his men, but sophia had seen how he had paused before saying so, how his expression, already bleak, had flattened. she saw these things because she knew francis well, and because she loved him.

the press had eaten it all up with silver spoons, of course.

sophia hadn’t seen him since. she had written him letters, care of sir james, and had only received terse responses in francis’s cramped hand as reply. she had comforted herself with these, had told herself that he only needed time to heal and reacquaint himself with society. she promised herself that when he asked for her hand a third time, she would accept.

francis’s name was splashed across the newspapers and tabloids already, sympathetic or sensational or derisive. but as time marched on, the the articles began to change: he had made few enough appearances since his return, and so it was only obvious that he was hiding something. the location of the passage. some secret esquimaux treasure. a woman.

capt. f.r.m. crozier, one headline read, and his netsilik wife.

“it was bound to happen,” lady jane had scoffed. “the shamelessness of the esquimaux is well known, and he is irish. for all of his other vices, why not this, as well?”

there were whispers, of course; there were always whispers. but they latched on to this rumor with relish, and its longevity only proved its veracity, that a woman had returned with him from the arctic and that he had taken her as his wife.

it had been a blow to sophia, a devastating change that had rocked her off her axis. there was no sympathy from her aunt, but she hadn’t expected any; lady jane had always disliked francis, and had never bothered to keep her disapproval of their match to herself.

sophia stopped writing. there were no letters asking why.

she did her best to avoid mention of him. it wasn’t hard in lady jane’s house, where any discussion of francis was shut down with stony silence, but dinner parties and social gatherings were different. she was sir john’s niece, after all, and captain crozier was the only remaining man from an expedition of one hundred and thirty four men. what did she know? what gossip did she have?

she swallowed her tongue and smiled and said, politely, that she knew nothing that the papers had not already reported on.

but there was always that inevitable, that inescapable thing that would put one through the gauntlet. for sophia, it was the banquet held in her uncle’s honor, and the honor of all the men who had perished with him, in that frozen waste. all navy notables would be there, and captain crozier was the guest of honor.

and his wife.

the ladies that sophia spent her time with wondered and tittered about it- would she be savage? would she eat with her hands? would she wear animal skins? would she wear anything at all?- but sophia dreaded it more than she had anything before in her life.

for all of this, though, it was a truly lovely dinner; no expense had been taken. the decorations were elegant, the table settings obviously expensive, but not gaudy. the food was said to be exquisite. if it were any other occasion, sophia would have thrived; she was, for anything else she may have been, a socialite, and an attractive prospect for bachelors.

so she wears her finest gown, her most delicate lace gloves, her newest shoes. she smears her face with cold creme, massages carmine into her cheeks, lightly lines her eyes; her hair is pulled up with pretty satin ribbons that shine in the candlelight.

her aunt, when sophia descends the stairs, smiles at her in approval. “it’s good that you’re quitting him, my dear.”

sophia smiles back, but it feels stiff and forced on her face.

they are not the first to arrive, but they are earlier than most, and lady jane spends the time flitting from group to huddled group, speaking with admirals and captains and commanders and their wives, fashionable and elegant even in her mourning black. sophia busies herself with their daughters, and ignores the nervous twist in her stomach.

francis does not arrive until later, just within what is considered acceptable. a ripple goes through the room before he even enters, heads bent to whispering; the volume of chatter drops only slightly, a slim enough fraction that the francis she had known would neither have noticed nor cared. the francis she had known would have occupied himself with a flute of champagne or a finger or two of liquor and lurked at the edges of the crowd with a surly expression.

this is not the francis she knew.

he had put on weight since she had seen him last, his dress uniform fitting him properly. he still did not look particularly thrilled to be there but he looked healthier, his cheeks rosy, his eyes brighter than she had ever seen. he had tamed the unruly beard he had worn the day that lady jane had banished him from the house into something more civilized, and when he bends to say something to his wife, he even smiles.

he looked happy, and it made sophia ache.

and his wife, oh. she was young, vaguely sophia’s age or perhaps a few years younger. her dress was simple in both cut and material, and she had apparently objected to the widening skirts that were in fashion, and her smooth dark hair was pulled into two looping braids. she was small, really, short on francis’s arm and looking almost delicate, her bronze skin all but glowing in the lamplight. she was exotic and strange, yes, but she was beautiful.

one of the girls that sophia had been speaking to- a young thing, maybe twenty, daughter of some lord whose name sophia had not cared to remember- makes a little noise in the back of her throat, somewhere between derisive and jealous. her lips curled into a moue of disgust, she says, “the absolute nerve to bring that to a dinner.”

sophia cuts the girl a sharp look but says nothing. she doesn’t approach them immediately; she needs time to brace herself, and she spends a while longer flitting from conversation to conversation, group to group. and then- she moves to thread her way seamlessly through the crowd in the way that only skilled socialites can. francis had already been engaged and by his expression he wasn’t particularly pleased with it, and his wife wasn’t even feigning attention and instead looking around the room with canny dark eyes. 

when francis catches sight of her he finishes whatever conversation he had been holding- and not skillfully, judging by the scowl that had flickered over the face of lord so-and-so- passing through the throng of people far less elegantly than she. he says something to his wife and a sliver of a smile passes over her mouth; sophia cannot read what he is saying, is not even sure that he’s speaking english.

“miss cracroft,” he says to her, looking uncomfortable, and sophia is struck with a sudden and sharp pang of disappointment. she hadn’t realized until that moment how much she had hoped he would use her given name, how much she had wanted to hear his voice saying it, rough brogue rolling over the syllables. “i trust that tonight has… has treated you well.”

 _you’re enjoying this,_ he would have accused her in another life, but he would have smiled at her, near the same smile he had favored his little esquimaux wife with before.  _you menace._

“captain crozier,” she replies smoothly, and then after a pause, “mrs. crozier. only as well as i hope london has treated you, since your return.”

he breathes in sharp at that, detectable only in the flare of his nostrils, but sophia had known him too well and too intimately to miss the nuances of his expressions. she notices that he’s not holding a glass, either, that he hadn’t had a drink since he’d stepped into the room. that was rather out of character for him- how much had he changed, exactly, those long years in the ice?

francis clears his throat, awkward, and her eyes snap back up to his face, a vague smile about her lips; it was the sort of empty politeness possessed by the upper crust that francis had always hated, and she knew that. something stormy shutters his expression and he says, “miss cracroft, this is my wife. silna.”

“call me sophia.” she turns her smile on the woman- silna, francis’s wife- and warms, because after all it wasn’t this poor girl’s fault that francis had gone and broken her heart. “silna, is it? that’s… rather unique.”

for all that she knew of silna’s foreignness, her brown skin and her dark eyes and the uncomfortable way she held herself in a dress, sophia had still somehow expected an english name, as many of the american indians brought to civilization had taken. and perhaps she had expected a response in return- a polite negative, a gentle rebuke- but silna just looks her over from head to toe, her expression unreadable.

“does she speak english, at least?” sophia says after a pause, glancing back at francis. he didn’t seem particularly keen on answering, but he moves to speak before he is interrupted.

“i do.” the words are strange, accented and mangled, but undeniably english. it was silna, and for all that the words fell wrong on the ears, her voice was pleasant enough. “i can.”

and she had no tongue.

sophia swallows her surprise, her hand halfway to covering her mouth before she dropped it. she had never agreed with her aunt on much, but perhaps lady jane was right in this, at least, that the esquimaux were a wild, savage people, that they could do such to one of their own, let alone a woman. 

perhaps it was mercy that had spurred francis to bring her here. perhaps they were married not out of love, but rather pity.

(sophia knew this to be false. she knew francis well enough to know him as he was when he was in love, and even in this short time she had seen him milder than before, had favored silna with more fond looks than sophia had ever received from him, and silna had returned in kind, in gentle touches and the way she leaned into him. they were strange, both of them out of place here and at odds with each other, but obviously well-suited.)

“mrs. crozier,” sophia says, “would you care to walk with me?”

silna watches her a moment, still and wary, before she nods. she gestures something at francis- hand spelling?- and he scowls but nods, and silna hooks her arm through sophia’s when it is offered. very deliberately, sophia does not look over her shoulder at francis as they weave through the throng.

“i thought we might go outside,” she tells silna, covering the other woman’s hand with her own. silna doesn’t pull away, but she glances at sophia from the corner of her eye, expression unreadable. “i’ve discovered that these sort of parties get stifling rather quickly.”

there is a balcony that sophia knows, with tall glass doors that allow the light from inside to seep through as it overlooks the meticulously kept courtyard below. silna looked lovely even out of the gold wash of the candlelight, backlit by the revelry inside and painted silvery by the dim moon.

had she been another woman sophia could have hated her. she could have taken all of her hurt over francis and transpose it into anger, lash out with jealousy. and she  _was_ hurt and she  _was_ jealous, but sophia was not another woman, and silna had done nothing to deserve that from her. all of her ire lay with francis alone.

(and maybe not even there, maybe with herself, because how could she blame him? she had strung him along, had given him hope and then crushed it twice over, and she was lucky that francis was so kind that he didn’t resent her for it.)

“i want to apologize,” sophia says, “for my earlier rudeness. that was uncharitable of me, and unkind.”

silna looks at her a moment and sophia can’t read her expression, something intense and focused, but then nods acceptance and sophia lets out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. silna touches her briefly on the shoulder, her fingertips light as a feather, then turns to look up at the sky. there’s something there on her face, something wistful that tugs at sophia’s heart.

“they’re different from where you’re from, i imagine.” it comes out as a whisper, the silence feeling almost fragile between them. silna inclines her chin just the tiniest bit. “they’re beautiful, though.”

they stay like that for a while, side by side and looking up at the sky, and sophia knows that later the memory of this will be held tender and precious and close to her heart.

“you make him happy,” sophia says. “he smiled at me and he loved me, once, but there was always a sadness there, or an anger. something i couldn’t touch.”

“i saved him,” silna acknowledges, and sophia wonders what she might have sounded like had she not been mangled so. something else passes over her face and sophia watches in profile; a brief flash of anguish, a sadness so deep and clear that she thinks this is why they were so suited to each other. silna and francis, they were the same in that. “he saved me, too.”


End file.
